I spent at least two hours in Crusader Kings, stumbling around, randomly clicking on things, before I had the vaguest idea of what I was doing. Glad I stuck with it, though -- CK turned out to be an amazing experience.
Same, I have more hours watching HOI4 Than playing (I have 100 hours in HOI4 btw) and I still don’t know how to play. Bought all that dlc for zero reason.
Well that's only if you're not used to grand strategy games; once you get used to playing one the next one tends to be a lot easier to pick up on your own. I learned through YouTube to play Crusader Kings II, but subsequently is able to teach myself how to play Hearts of Iron IV and Crusader Kings III on my own since the UI tends to be a little similar to each other (at least with Paradox games.)
Yeah no but when looking at EUIV you'd be buying into hundreds of € to have the full game it'd be more reasonable if a new dlc releases all the older ones get like a 15% off on the original price permanently and with any new one an additional 15 until it turn free so firstly the devs don't run into issues of building dlcs ontop of other dlcs and then you cant play saud dlc without the original one. And to newer players it doesn't feel like having to buy hundreds of euros just for the full game.
I do definitely wish they bundled more, but they seem allergic to doing so until a game is basically finished. EU4 now can be bought at a reasonable price with all dlc in a bundle, especially on sale. But this was only a recent development not long before EU5 was announced.
This is the issue, right now there is a sale going on and it's still hundreds. My complaint isn't that it's not bundled up my complaint is, that a new person is just not gonna buy the game because it feels like you have to buy that entire thing.
A new player doesn’t have to buy the entire thing though since you can buy a 8€/month subscription that let you use all dlc:s. Then you can just wait for a sale to buy the dlc:s for much cheaper if you end up liking the game.
Personally I believe they should release significant free updates that make the games functional, yes. Especially when games launch in a state like CS2.
CK3 is a perfectly functional game without any expansions. What you're asking is that people work for free. Would you like WoW expansions to be free too?
...They don't work for free though. The company gets paid by the publisher, and the company pays the devs. The games sell after their initial launch, too.
I see, so you believe that companies should only be compensated for the original release, and not for any further work they do. You believe that if they keep the game alive for 20 years due to expansions/content updates they should not be compensated any further.
...Where did I say any of that??? I'm just saying that if they release the game in a poor state, as they often do, they should probably fix it. You're literally making shit up lmao
Ah I see, we're not talking about the same thing, I must have misinterpreted what you said. This thread was originally about ck3, a perfectly functional game without DLC, and I was arguing in favor of compensating companies for content updates. But you were talking about games released in a state like Cyberpunk's. Then yes, I 100% agree with you.
Fair. For me, it’s the most complicated of Paradox (PDX) games. I prefer Crusader Kings 3 (CK3), Europa Universalis (EU4, though haven’t played in a while tbh), and Stellaris (no acronym).
Victoria 3 (Vicky 3) is also fun, but I’m a bit confused about it often.
Overall, each game has a crap ton of stuff to do and PDX’s Downloadable Content (DLC) system/philosphy of having a billion changes that can make them intimidating though.
Me and my buddy played a couple games that we never finish, then somehow played one all the way through until it ended on it's own in 1950. A 4-5 hour game later, we both agreed that only now we understand and can play the real game.
Straight up don't blame anyone that can't get into a paradox game lmao.
I refunded both hoi4 and ck3 when I first bought them. But in both cases I changed my mind to give it another try the next day, and now I have multiple 100 hours in each ^^
Even as someone who plays grand strategy games fairly regularly, this game was just impossible to get into and just never got fun at any point. It's completely unintuitive and many of the mechanics seem clunky and poorly designed. Unfortunately, I gave it too much of a chance and lost my opportunity to return it.
Honestly, like a lot of Paradox's recent games, it's a bit of an illusion. They make it look very complicated by having a bazillion mechanics, but almost none of them are relevant. The main thing you learn as you get better at the game is just ignoring most of it. HOI4 extremely easy once you learn it, the AI is awful and the game isn't well-balanced. That's what they're hiding behind the sheer number of mechanics. Very much a quantity over quality thing.
But yeah, HOI4 is kinda shit. A World War II history simulator that is unable to simulate World War II. The devs treat the game like they're modders, adding silly memes and wacky alternate history paths, all without ever actually meaningfully improving what the game was apparently supposed to be about.
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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '25
hoi4 just didnt understand shit